"An Illustrated History of Skagit and Snohomish Counties." Interstate
Publishing Company, 1906. p. 537.
JASPER GATES
a distinguished veteran of the Civil War, and a pioneer of pioneers in the
Mount Vernon section of Skagit county, now residing on his farm two miles
southwest of Mount Vernon, was born in Jefferson City, Missouri, April 9, 1840.
His father, Abel Gates, was a native of New Bedford, Massachusetts, born July 4,
1787. As lieutenant of the Fifth Rifle Regiment, Company C, he served under
General Snellen in the war of 1812, participating in the battles of New Orleans
and White Plains. At the close of the war he engaged in farming for four years,
then in the packing business in Missouri, in which state he later returned to
agricultural pursuits. His death occurred November 2, 1870. The mother, Mary
(Burns) Gates, born in Ireland, was the daughter of a well known soldier in the
war of 1812. She was the mother of four children, James A., Samuel U., Jasper
and Acaph. After the completion of his education, Jasper Gates was for several
years associated with his father in the work of the farm, owning one-half
interest in it. Loyally responding to the call of his country in 1862, he
enlisted in Company C, Twenty-Seventh Missouri Infantry, and like his father
before him, he was soon in the thickest of the fight. He received an honorable
discharge in Saint Louis, in June, 1865, having been promoted from the rank of
private to color sergeant. He was actively engaged in the following battles:
Vicksburg, Grand Gulf, Jackson, Corinth, Pea Ridge, Chattanooga, Lookout
Mountain, Missionary Ridge and Chickamauga, and was also one of those who made
the famous March to the Sea, under Sherman. At Resaca, Georgia, he received a
severe wound that disabled him for some time. Taking up his residence in Adair
county at the close of the war, he remained there until he came to Skagit
county, in 1870, where he took up as a homestead the quarter section of land
where Mount Vernon is located, and where he lived for twenty-one years. He moved
on his present property in 1891. Mr. and Mrs. Gates have seen frontier life in
all of its phases, and have undergone many hardships which will never be
recorded.
Mr. Gates was married in 1860 to Clarinda Kimble, the daughter of Aaron and
Nancy (Snodgrass) Kimble. Her father, a native of New Jersey, was a stonemason
and bricklayer. He died in 1846. Her mother, a Virginian, born in 1812, died in
Mount Vernon in 1886. Mrs. Gates has the following brothers and sisters: Vina
(deceased), Joseph, John Aaron, Newton, Mary Catharine and Mrs. Martha Clifton.
Mr. and Mrs. Gates have eight children: Newton J., Mrs. Matilda Hartson, Mrs.
Mary Beacon and Mrs. Martha Jane Parker of Mount Vernon; Otto and William, at
home; Mrs. Clarinda Cowell, living two miles south of Mount Vernon, and Cleon
Emmett. Mr. Gates is a prominent Republican.; was sheriff from 1876 to 1880, and
United States marshal from 1880 to 1884. He is an honored member of the Grand
Army of the Republic. The family attend the Methodist church of which Mrs. Gates
is an active member. Reaping fair returns from his business undertakings, Mr.
Gates now owns fifty-three acres of improved land, worth one hundred and fifty
dollars, together with one hundred and fifteen acres of timber land in Missouri.
Identified with the interests of Mount Vernon for so many years, Mr. Gates has a
wide circle of friends and acquaintances who accord him the highest respect, and
among the early settlers he is accorded the distinction of being the ''Father of
Mount Vernon," and a pioneer par excellence.
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Submitted to the Washington Biographies Project in September 2007 by Diana
Smith. Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family
mentioned above.